Smartphones

In a world where smartphones hold a special place in people’s hearts and reign supreme, one would think that dumb phones are a thing of the past. Well, think again! The world may be under the addiction of smartphones like Unlocked iPhone 4 and the Droid X, but not everyone can afford to get a smartphone. T- Mobile does not normally team up with LG, but in this case has done so, and come out with three state-of-the-art dumb phones. For those who are not aware of the term “dumbphone”, a dumbphone is one which is very similar to a smartphone, but does not have quite all the features that are present in a smart phone. Coming back to LG and T-Mobile, these two mobile giants have come together, possibly for the first time, and launched three dumbphones, and are actually more advanced than you might give them credit for. The three phones are- Sentio, dLite, and GS170. Of these, the Sentio is the most notable.

The LG's Unlocked ( Sentio ) comes as close to a smartphone as a dumbphone can get. The Sentio is a touch screen phone, and comes with a virtual QWERTY keyboard. It sports a 3 inch display, and supports the 3G networks provided by T-Mobile. It has a 3 megapixel camera, can shoot videos quite efficiently, and even enables users to record visual voicemails. This phone is GPS activated, and comes with a huge number of pre-loaded widgets, which a user can use to customize the home screen with. The Sentio has an application called Social Buzz, which manages activities like Facebook and Twitter more than efficiently. The phone is currently available in a soft, navy blue color, and is available in very few select retail stores only. It is available online on a two-year contract basis for $69.99, but the market-price of the Sentio has not been decided upon yet.

For those who cannot quite afford smartphones, dumbphones are just the thing for them. Dumbphones come closest to a smartphone in design, as well as features, and there are many users worldwide, who are satisfied with their dumbphones. Hopefully, the Sentio will also flourish in the market, and bring good luck to the collaboration between LG and T-Mobile.

Samsung Corporation unveiled the new Unlocked Galaxy ( X series ) of Android devices recently. Quite a party was held to celebrate the release of this series. The event was dark, there were limitless drinks, and the food was great, catering to the needs of a hungry crowd. The main attraction of the evening, however, was, the new Galaxy S devices, for each U.S. carrier.

The most significant feature of these phones is Samsung’s Super AMOLED display. The special characteristic of this display is that there is a high contrast of black and white, which looks spectacular, has bright colors, and the display seemed even better than the iPhone 4’s display. Guests had the chance to hold the Unlocked iPhone4 and an AMOLED display set side by side to compare the two. Even though the resolution and crispness of the iPhone 4’s display is far superior to that of the AMOLED display, the AMOLED display looks much better from 2 feet away, and that is exactly the distance at which we hold our phones. So, the Galaxy S devices were better. But guests could not take the Galaxy S devices up to the roof and conduct a sunlight test. But there is evidence that the Galaxy S devices’ display is the best compared to other Android phones, when brought under sunlight.

The Samsung’s Unlocked Galaxy S phones are fast and gorgeous. But there is one downside to them. Despite being such high-end phones, they still had that cheap plastic feel that is common to Samsung phones. This put their strength and rigidity under doubt. The phones coming under this doubt were the Captivate, Fascinate and Vibrant, as they were all very thin phones.

With the world in its stride to make itself smarter than ever, it is a nagging feeling when you can’t just jack your phone into your PC and sync your device with iTunes as smoothly as you can with your new unlocked iPhone 4. You would have to take recourse of some kind of mass storage devices or USB mode only to have to go through the rather groveling task of manually dragging and dropping all your music into your cell phone’s SD card. The whole task is rather unnecessary, not to mention tedious and time consuming. But the whole messy out-of-date process can disappear in the bat of an eyelid with the new BlackBerry. With the new Music WithMe you can sync your BlackBerry with iTunes totally wirelessly.

It’s $15 from BlackBerry App World, which might raise a few eyebrows but if you are tired of fidgeting around and manually synchronizing all your then you should get this application. So let’s just run a little check on what you are about to treat yourself to and what you can expect with this item.

Using Wi-Fi or even a cellular connection, you can easily and wirelessly sync your iTunes playlists to BlackBerry. Your playlist is automatically updated and any changes made on your playlist on iTunes will directly change on your BlackBerry. On June 24, 2010 Park Vu unveiled the Music WithMe for BlackBerry Smartphones thus totally wiping away the need for a USB connection or even any kind of secondary devices. With the help of Wi-Fi or a cellular connection you can also download music files from their iTunes collection to device on the go. And once the downloading completes no more data is used thus consuming lesser battery and as a direct impact your pocket feels a tad heavier. Co-CEO of Park Vu, Terry Goertz said that they were extremely excited on the launch of Music WithMe to the smartphones and also confirmed it is the easiest way to upload your unlocked smartphone with iTunes music. Music WithMe is available at $14.99 at BlackBerry App World.

Today it was announced that a new device called the Pantech Ease is soon going to be launched by Pantech in association with AT&T. this device is focusing on keeping things as simple as possible, similar to the previous Pantech Breeze and Breeze II. The Pantech Ease is stated to be the first quick messaging phone, designed in such a way as to facilitate users that seek greater simplicity in unlocked phones. With the Pantech Ease, users can expect a 3.2 inch screen that is completely touch capable along with a full QWERTY keyboard. There is even a basic as well as advanced mode to switch between so as to facilitate novices as well as advanced users.

The basic functionality of the phone is mainly aimed at seniors and mobile newbies, while the advanced mode is aimed at those proficient with handling cell phones. The Pantech Ease also has a streamlined menu and large fonts and buttons for much improved and easier navigation. Other features of the Pantech Ease include a 7.2 Mbps HSDPA network, speech to text dictation for messages that allows one to simply speak into the phone and the message will be typed as well as an AT&T Navigator. To be released on 20th June, the launch price of the Pantech Ease has been set for $120. There is also a $50 mail-in rebate that is being offered by AT&T for an AT&T promotional card.

By launching the Pantech Ease, AT&T plans on targeting those prospective buyers not used to the functionality of a cellphone. AT&T is committed to providing customers with the latest in technological innovations through its release of the Pantech Breeze in 2008, the Pantech Breeze II in 2010 and now the Pantech Ease.

Whenever you visit any fast food restaurant, one of the most common scenarios is that of seeing people more attached to their Unlocked Mobile Phones rather than what they are eating. You will find them protecting their cell phones from even the slightest amount of grease and oil just so that they can use it to communicate or play a game. Now with different advances in technology, it has become possible to do much more from your cell phone, such as checking into a hotel, booking rooms and now, even opening doors.

Now instead of having to visit the front desk of any hotel to confirm your booking of any rooms, you can do the very same thing all from the comfort of the interiors of the hotel. No longer will you have to stand in line in a queue behind confused customers wondering whether your turn is going to come or not. Newely created software allows you to do just this. It can open doors for you without you having to wait in line for your swipe card.

Tested on two different American Holiday Inns, this new application promises a complete change in the way we can book and confirm our reservations. Making use of a “unique audio code,” your Unlocked Cell Phone can act like your very own swipe card. The only downfall associated with this application is that it is newly designed software; chances are that there will be many different bugs present in the software. Also, since the code is being played from an e-mail, you will have to progress through at least 3 different steps to make sure that you have the right combination for opening your door lock. At the same time, since the entire process works on the microphone capability of the doorknob, you need to ensure that there is no disturbance in the vicinity when making use of your swipe card cell phone.

Whenever you visit any fast food restaurant, one of the most common scenarios is that of seeing people more attached to their Unlocked Mobile Phones rather than what they are eating. You will find them protecting their cell phones from even the slightest amount of grease and oil just so that they can use it to communicate or play a game. Now with different advances in technology, it has become possible to do much more from your cell phone, such as checking into a hotel, booking rooms and now, even opening doors.

Now instead of having to visit the front desk of any hotel to confirm your booking of any rooms, you can do the very same thing all from the comfort of the interiors of the hotel. No longer will you have to stand in line in a queue behind confused customers wondering whether your turn is going to come or not. Newely created software allows you to do just this. It can open doors for you without you having to wait in line for your swipe card.

Tested on two different American Holiday Inns, this new application promises a complete change in the way we can book and confirm our reservations. Making use of a “unique audio code,” your Unlocked Cell Phone can act like your very own swipe card. The only downfall associated with this application is that it is newly designed software; chances are that there will be many different bugs present in the software. Also, since the code is being played from an e-mail, you will have to progress through at least 3 different steps to make sure that you have the right combination for opening your door lock. At the same time, since the entire process works on the microphone capability of the doorknob, you need to ensure that there is no disturbance in the vicinity when making use of your swipe card cell phone.

Starting 7th June, AT&T has decided to get rid of its unlimited data Smartphone transfer plan and introduce different plans. The current $30 unlimited Unlocked Smartphone plan is soon to be depreciated with AT&T claiming that its new plans would be more affordable and more appreciative for people that make use of the internet on a regular basis. So what are these plans and are they really beneficial? We have analyzed them and give you the lowdown on what you really need to know about these plans.

DataPlus: Under this plan, AT&T plans of giving around 200MB of data transfer for $15. AT&T representatives claim that this plan will be sufficient for more than 65% of their Smartphone user database. In case you should choose this plan and go above the limit of 200MB, additional charges of the same amount for every additional 200MB will be charged.

DataPro: AT&T states that nearly 2% of its Smartphone users go over the 2GB limit of this plan. Charged at $25 per month, additional charges are $10 per GB.

There are even talks going on at AT&T that claim those users wishing to have tethering on their DataPro plan can do so at an additional charge of $20 per month. This effectively results in you being able to share around 2 GB of data flow between your Smartphone and laptop for around $45 per month. Not bad, should you require the internet for simple mail checks. But there is a 5GB data transfer plan available for around $60 and together with tethering; the entire package costing $75.

Although you might not like any of the new plans that have come into existence, the new rates are much more user friendly allowing many AT&T Quickfire Unlocked Phone subscribers to now leverage the complete power of the internet and Smartphone. Of course, you could still decide to stick with the unlimited $30 data plan currently available.

In yet another internal memo it looks like the Sprint Hero is set to receive the Android 2.1 update in early May. According to other internal memos the Hero was supposed to have had Android 2.1 last week so we can not really count on these memos to be highly accurate. However, this latest news does come from two different sources. The guys over at Android Guys got a customer service rep on the phone who said:

Agent (Jolly K): “I am sorry for misinformation. The updates says that Android 2.1 HTC Hero is being launched in the first week ok [sic] May”

At about the same time the fellas over at Phandroid got their hands on a camera shot of a memo indicating the same thing saying the Hero can expect the upgrade to Android 2.1 in early May.

For those of you wondering what the hold up might be Sprint is notorious for their update certification process. If they even get the smallest inkling of a bug they will delay the roll out until the bug is fixed and can be re-tested. So I am assuming there was some sort of last minute bug that appeared and Sprint is thoroughly testing any patches that were put in place to correct this problem. While it might be a bit of a pain to have to wait on receiving your Android update it is much better than having several issues with your mobile device once the new OS is released.

Since Hero customers have waited this long I am sure that you can hold out for another week or two to ensure that your HTC Hero mobile phone will continue to work the way you would like it to after the release of the Android 2.1 operating system.

Not even a whole two months removed from announcing their Windows Phone 7 Series Microsoft is back today with another event that is expected to reveal its Project Pink lineup which will include two new handsets known as the “Pure” and “Turtle.” It is unknown whether or not they will run Windows Phone 7 or a completely different OS.

With the start of their event Microsoft has made a couple announcements regarding the specs of these two new phones. Here are the specs for the Kin One.
· Compact keypad for one-handed texting
· Multi-touch display
· 5 megapixel camera with LED flash and SD video recording
· Wi-Fi
· GPS
· External mono speaker
· 4GB internal memory (enough for 1,000 songs)
· Media powered by Zune
With a slightly different design the specs for the Kin Two are also slight different. Here is what this device is expected to come with.
· Horizontal sliding QWERTY keypad
· Multi-touch display
· 8 megapixel camera with LED flash and HD video recording
· Wi-Fi
· GPS
· External stereo speaker
· 8GB internal memory (enough for 2,000 songs)
· Media powered by Zune

Windows Phone 7 is about simplifying people’s lives, whereas KIN is all about amplifying people’s lives. It represents Microsoft “cranking social up to 11″ for “people who live to be connected, share, express and relate to their friends and family.” Don't forget about getting your Bluetooth headset as well.

These two new devices are designed to keep people more in touch with their friends and acquaintances via various social media websites. One of the cool features of the Kin is that it comes with KIN Studio. “It’s your phone, online, on any web browser.” With KIN Studio, all of your call logs, texts, contacts images, videos, and more are stored in the cloud and viewable in a pretty nifty looking timeline. Pretty much everything you do on the KIN is compatible with geo-tagging, so if you forget where you were when you took a particular picture or video you can go online and refresh your memory thanks to the integration of Bing Maps

I am sure there will be a lot more announcements regarding Project Pink coming from the current Microsoft event and the availability of getting it as an unlocked cell phone.

In an announcement to their premier customers Sprint released an account alert asking their customers to “visit us tomorrow for an exciting announcement about a groundbreaking new device.” No other details were provided but it is rumored that that this “groundbreaking new device” is the long rumored WiMAX smarphone. This new WiMAX smartphone known as the HTC Supersonic comes equipped with a 4.3 inch screen and Android 2.1 with Sense UI.

Releasing a 4G device would certainly fit the “groundbreaking” category and there have already been plans to unveil the phone at CTIA. There was a web chat transcript that was found on the Sprint Community that seems to corroborate. In this web chat an interested consumer asks customer support if a new Android device is going to hit the market soon. The customer support rep does in fact confirm that a new smartphone device is going to be available very soon.

The announcement of this new phone is a welcome sight to any consumers who were waiting for a new Android phone to hit the market. This new HTC Supersonic is supposedly going to be one of the most high powered phones on the market today. The 4.3 inch screen will make surfing the web and browsing through contacts and music a breeze. Also, this new mobile device is going to be part of the Android 2.1 OS which is supposed to be much more powerful than the original Android OS.

I know that I am quite excited to see what this potentially new unlocked cell phone is actually going to be and what this new announcement is all about. If it is in fact going to be an announcement about the new HTC Supersonic than you can expect Sprint CEO Dan Hesse to talk about this in his keynote speech on Wednesday at CTIA.

Kyocera has finally decided to enter the Android market by announcing their first Android phone the Zio M6000. The Zio will ship with Android version 1.6. The Zio is a tri-band CDMA EVDO Rev. Which is a handset that supports the 800/1700/1900MHz bands. By utilizing these three bands this makes the Zio compatabile with networks operated by Sprint, Verizon and smaller networks such as Cricket. Other features of the new Android phone by Kyocera include WiFi, Bluetooth and GPS. The Zio comes with a 3.5 inch WVGA screen with 800 x 480 pixels. The Zio also features a 3.2 megapixel camera with dedicated camera key and video capture at 30 frames per second. Additional features include a digital compass, accelerometer and support for microSD cards up to 32GB.

While it is still unknown when any US carriers will offer the Zio it is safe to say that Kyocera is looking to make quite the splash in the Android market. For their first Android phone the Zio is set to be one of the better Android phones on the market. With all of the features that come standard with this particular model the Zio is expected to be a hit in both the US and foreign markets. I am especially excited to check out the digital compass and video capture camera. There are two pretty cool features that most mobile devices do not currently have.

For their first Android phone it appears as if Kyocera has hit a homerun with the Zio. I will be expecting big things out of them in the future when they learn what more of their consumers are looking for and can incorporate those wishes into newer and more powerful Android phones and for unlocked cell phones.